Vince Russo always has plenty to say about wrestling news and booking—including WWE’s handling of Cody Rhodes. According to Russo, the company hasn’t done anything with Cody and hasn’t gotten him over with casual fans.
Vince Russo Believes WWE Hasn’t Done Anything with Cody Rhodes
WWE’s game plan has always been to catch and hold the casuals. It’s a good, working strategy for a company with sponsors and networks to answer to—especially if they regularly draw millions in the average viewers to their programs. If your promotion is in the business of making money and covering all the expenses, you’ve got some talent to capture casual fans and young fans.
With the casuals and kids, you’ve hopefully got a bunch of hardcore fans with deep, loose pockets. In the case of WWE, they have a mix of fans with the casuals and kids making up the important chunk. So, the casual fan capturer is important, and WWE has a couple who can get the job at every level.
Former WWE, WCW, and TNA writer Vince Russo said that WWE hasn’t gotten it done as far as making Cody Rhodes likable to casuals—which I can see. Of course, Cody is a hard talent to get over with casual fans because he doesn’t seem to naturally endear himself as a relatable babyface. He finally has a bit of a gauntlet of foes to struggle against to add more to his march towards main event gold but there’s still an issue with how he’s presented against those foes.
Then again, Cody comes off as a babyface who should be able to beat his opponents. While there is the chance he could lose, it seems like there is more fan investment in the quality of his matches than in the build to that match. Russo said of WWE’s handling of Cody Rhodes:
“They’ve done nothing with this guy, outside of [having] him go out there every week and say, ‘Farmingville, New York, what do you want to talk about?’ Cody doesn’t write the show. They’ve done nothing with him.” (h/t: Wrestling Inc)
Since he returned to WWE, Cody won the 2023 Royal Rumble after returning from injury following his feud with Seth Rollins. He’d also feuded with Roman Reigns over the Undisputed WWE Universal title and later Lesnar. Currently, Cody Rhodes is being watched closely to see how his run turns out and when he gets WWE main event gold and at Fastlane 2023, he and Jey Uso won the WWE Undisputed Tag Team titles.
CHECK IT OUT: Get The Overtimer’s Hottest Stories, Breaking News and Special Features in your email, CLICK HERE!
